


Why Talk About the End

by shinealightrose



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: M/M, Past Relationship(s), Sexual Content, Slight Angst and Feels, Writers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-12
Updated: 2015-09-12
Packaged: 2018-04-20 08:44:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4781078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinealightrose/pseuds/shinealightrose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joonmyun imagines the end of every relationship before it happens. His entire career as a writer is secretly based on it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Why Talk About the End

“So, Joonmyun, what do you do for a living?”  
  
Joonmyun lowers his head and blushes half-heartedly. It's a question he's used to being asked, and by now he's well used to answering. He's a school teacher by day, writer by night. Most of his dates don't honestly believe the second one, and that's okay with him. Their disbelief is just the first layer of gauze Joonmyun weaves around his tightly restricted life. Most of his dates won't get that far. Most of his boyfriends don't even get that far, because he never seems able to stay in a relationship for terribly long. Maybe because he just doesn't pick them very well, or maybe his dates also have bad taste, and Joonmyun isn't worth sticking around for. Their loss.   
  
Once upon a time it used to break his heart, every failed love. But these days... well, these days he's not so much calloused against the possibilities as he is guarded. He clouds his heart, but still crushes easily.   
  
“Perhaps I'll let you read one of my novels, some day,” Joonmyun tells the boy he's out with tonight. His name is Kai and he's stunning in all the right ways, interesting to speak with, shy of look and subtle of touch. Just the kind of boyfriend Joonmyun likes to have, and usually the kind of boyfriend who will put in a good few months of loving before something strikes in him. He'll wake up one day and decide that Joonmyun is old and boring and dull, and then he'll move on. They always move on, and Joonmyun does too.   
  
He's not indifferent to the probable outcomes, not anymore. Because foresight is knowledge and knowledge is wisdom, and wisdom for Joonmyun translates to an open mind, and Joonmyun's always had an open mind. His imagination is boundless.   
  
It's why his hobbies include predicting every break-up before it happens. He's good at it. It's how his hobby became a secondary source of income. Why every novel he turns into his publisher is about the end. The end of a relationship before it's even happened. Some readers are so fascinated by the concept of  _the end_ and Joonmyun is only here to oblige them.   
  
“I'd love to read one, some day.” Kai grins cutely.   
  
Joonmyun smiles and thinks, _No... no you won't want to read it by then._ And while he allows himself to be wined and dined, he's already wondering how this one might end. Another man perhaps? Should Joonmyun come over to his boyfriend's home one day to find the dancer in bed with another? Or forced separation? Should Kai knock on his door one evening and deliver a sad tear-stricken letter with his acceptance to a company across the world? His date is young and impressionable, wide-eyed and optimistic, and not unlike the last beautiful man Joonmyun met and dated. Tao, who accidentally poured hot coffee on his sleeve the first time they met and was so remorseful it became the start of a world wind romance, until it also fizzled out six months later. _Coffee Stains_ _,_  Joonmyun titled that segment of his life, for the stains on his shirt which never entirely came out. He published it a month before Tao even left, the dull stains of drudgery already upon Joonmyun's heart.   
  
_What'll this next one be called?_ Joonmyun wonders, even as he looks into Kai's eyes and imagines staying there forever. What a shame that every relationship comes to such a finite end.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
But Kai exceeds the next date expectations, and also the first month of dating. Three months go by and Joonmyun happily resides in the honeymoon stage. At six months, Kai actually moves in, and that's when Joonmyun opens the first page of his password protected Word processor. It's the dull of the night and Kai came home hours ago. They made love an hour recently, and then Kai whined and yawned and tried to cuddle him under the sheets, and all was perfect until Joonmyun got a crick in his back and made himself crawl out from between covers and limbs.   
  
The keyboard is cold beneath his fingertips as he wonders how to start it. How  _the end_ will start. Should he stick with the cold hard facts, like Kai's sporadic rehearsal schedules, or the multitude of attractive men and women he works with? Dances with? That he touches all the time, either by accident or by virtue of choreography? Joonmyun has seen some of his performances. Kai is cute and adorable off the stage, cuddly and needy, but on stage he's a stranger. A beast of a man with a sensual side Joonmyun rarely sees, even in bed.   
  
_'What started as an accident, a soft glide of his fingertips across the other man's hip, soon turned into an obsession. A desire to feel that skin-'_  
  
He pauses, because however cautious Joonmyun is in his relationships, there's still a part of him that doesn't want to imagine it going quite that far. Especially when they haven't yet run into the danger zone. Perhaps his writing is still too premature? Usually by this time he has more inspiration to foresee the end.   
  
“Joonmyun?” comes a sleepy voice from down the hall, Kai on the move.   
  
Joonmyun hastily deletes the line. In its place he writes the time and date, pretending to chronicle his notes. Pretending that he's not already wondering when all of this will go wrong.   
  
“Yeah, babe? What's up?” He spins his desk chair around to face his boyfriend, inwardly cringing because there's nothing more beautiful that Kai with mussed up hair and an overly large tee and boxers.   
  
“How come you're not in bed?” Kai yawns as he shuffles into the room. The light from Joonmyun's computer desk blinds him a little, and he shields his eyes, a toss of his head as his bangs fall into place. “Oh, are you writing? Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you...”   
  
There's a hesitation in his voice that says he hopes he is interrupting, and not just to be petty. Joonmyun knows that smile, that smirk. The one that Kai gets when he's cute and turned on.   
  
“You aren't. Actually I  _am_  really drawing a blank tonight,” Joonmyun allows, smiling slightly.   
  
“Hmm. Anything I can help you with?” says his boyfriend as he crowds over the chair and puts a knee to the outside of Joonmyun's hips.   
  
_Not in that way_ _,_ he thinks. But maybe in something else?   
  
“Didn't we do this once already tonight?” he asks, even though the answer is not important and Kai knows he's not going to care.   
  
“So?” says the boy as he crawls on top of his lap. Joonmyun doesn't even have time to laugh when Kai's lips are on his, less urgent than they were earlier. This time it's sweet and so are the arms that sneak over the top of Joonmyun's shoulders, massaging his neck and shoulder blades, pushing, pressing and creeping their way down his back. Sweet too are the airy breaths out of Kai's mouth every spare moment when he's not kissing him back. He's often like this, clingy of touch and sweetly insistent, devoted to Joonmyun, innocently shy but not afraid to seek further, deeper. The press of their crotches is quickly proving that.   
  
So maybe it won't be a lack of sexual attraction that ends it this time around. Joonmyun's going to have to revisit the topic at a later date and imagine something else.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Sehun was probably the biggest mistake of Joonmyun's entire dating career. Too young, too much of a boy. He was almost eight years younger than Joonmyun, and in the beginning there was nothing wrong with that. Eight years was a manageable figure, in Joonmyun's mind, and he wasn't robbing the cradle by that much. Sehun was twenty-two, Joonmyun almost thirty.   
  
He said he was attracted to the way Joonmyun wore a suit. Not even designer, but Sehun liked the way Joonmyun's shoulders filled it out. Loved tracing his hands along the outside and feeling the way Joonmyun's flesh molded it throughout. He loved taking him out of his suit, undressing him slowly, leaving always one random article of clothing still on his body. Just Joonmyun's tie, or just his jacket. Just his socks whenever they fucked, and sometimes he wouldn't let Joonmyun even remove his boxers when he blew him, preferring instead to draw him out through the cut in the fabric. Sehun always liked it when Joonmyun wore the pants, and in reverse he bared himself like a newborn baby. Joonmyun was the fantasy upon which Sehun acted and dreamed upon. Joonmyun had rarely met someone with an imagination even greater than his.   
  
If only Sehun hadn't acted through every encounter, eventually role-playing past a level Joonmyun was comfortable with. Call Me Only Lover, he titled that chapter of his life, that novel. Joonmyun appreciated more the equality of mind he'd had with Tao, or that he has with Kai.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
“You haven't been writing much these days. What's the matter? Lost your inspiration?”   
  
“Hmm?” mumbles Joonmyun fondly. He's taken to playing FreeCell on his computer instead of writing, enjoying the lack of fear having a Word document implies. He doesn't have to scramble to hide his work whenever he hears Kai coming down the hall.   
  
“What, are you afraid I'll catch you at your hobby and read all your little secrets?” Kai laughs.   
  
Joonmyun nearly chokes, but only because of Kai's arms encircling his neck from behind. His boyfriend likes standing behind his chair, resting his head on top of Joonmyun's or else in the crook of his neck. He likes to press little kisses there either as a goodbye gesture when he's heading out for rehearsals or as a greeting for when he returns. Kai never pries, doesn't ask what Joonmyun's doing or not doing. It is borderline too good to be true. Joonmyun isn't so fantasy-driven that he thinks Kai is the absolute perfect boyfriend because they have their squabbles and their misunderstandings. The problem is he can't pick out any one scenario or instance or habit that's inspiring enough to imagine the end.   
  
“No, I was just thinking my book, and then I started thinking about the papers I should be grading instead, and then I wasn't in the mood to do either, so...”   
  
“So you play card games by yourself?” Kai cranes around to peck his cheek, and then bounces up. He's already dressed to go out, dance pants hugging his waistline, unlaced sneakers dangling from his hand. The hoodie obscuring half his face is actually one of Joonmyun's old ones from his college days, but Kai doesn't believe in individual property. Not anymore, not when they share the same closet. “Don't you have publishers who will get mad at you if you don't actually do something?”   
  
“Yes, but I also have a boyfriend who demands all my love and attention, so what's a man supposed to do? Think they'll buy that excuse?”   
  
Kai grins at him, a smirk more like; because it's true he loves and demands attention. Only it's never in an overbearing way. “Probably not. Anyways, you're in luck because I have an extra late night so you've got all the time in the world to do your work  _and_  your second work. Hobby, job, fatal secrets, whatever you want to call it.” He chuckles, bids Joonmyun goodnight after another, wetter kiss, and then he's gone.   
  
Fatal secrets, Kai always jokes. Perhaps though he is right, or could be right. But will Kai still be around long enough to know them? The rest have not.   
  
That night Kai loses his hoodie. He claims he left it in a practice room when he left in a hurry with his mates to grab a late meal, and when he goes back the next day to retrieve it it's gone. Kai apologizes, acts cute and miserable all in one, but Joonmyun really doesn't care about the hoodie itself. He's more intrigued by all the possible ways Kai may have actually lost it. Did he take it off himself; was it taken off for him? Did he leave it somewhere else entirely? Why wouldn't it be in the studio the next day when supposedly nobody should have been in there?   
  
There's an uncomfortable feeling growing in the pit of Joonmyun's stomach as he imagines a multitude of reasons. What disturbs him though is that the feeling isn't even related to the fear Kai might be lying. Rather, it's because it's making Joonmyun honestly kind of queasy, hyping up a half dozen possible scenarios over someone he doesn't believe is in the wrong.   
  
But deadlines are deadlines.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
“You know, this is actually kind of shitty, right?”   
  
Joonmyun grimaces into the face of his editor, Luhan. “It is?” he appeals as innocently as he can.   
  
“Oh, it is. And I think you know it. Come on, out with it now. Tell me. Tell your old pal why I shouldn't dump this draft into the first fire I can find, or else shred it into fine little pieces to use as kindling for the next draft I'm afraid you'll bring me.”   
  
Luhan's been his editor for the last two novels Joonmyun published. He's sharp, quick-tongued, friendly when he needs to be, and deadly stern when he's demanding a better project. Usually though it's not this bad. Little suggestions to shape the scope of the storyline, insights into which scenes are a waste of paper and ink. Joonmyun has never been told before that his draft is utter crap.   
  
“You really don't like it?” says Joonmyun glumly, eyes glossing over the front page of his lamely titled draft,  _Another Man's Jacket_ , by Kim Suho.   
  
“Uhm, let me think of another way to say it,” Luhan ruminates, eyebrows dramatically furrowed, knuckles on his chin. “Let me think. What's the phrase I'm looking for? Oh yeah: _I really don't like it._ It's shit, Joonmyun. Nothing make sense. Your plot is ridiculous, far-fetched. Maybe you should do some epic sci-fi fantasy mystery instead, because the amount of sheer unreasoning in this storyline makes utterly no sense. It's like you don't even care about or believe what you're writing. Or maybe you're trying to write a Kdrama script instead of a serious novel? Whatever it is it's crap. So come on, tell me what the problem is.”   
  
The problem is, Joonmyun and Kai's relationship is approaching one year, and nothing about it gives a kick start to Joonmyun's imagination into predicting how it'll end.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
That night when Kai gets home, Joonmyun is already in bed. It's not even that late, but everything in his mind has been spinning since his meeting with Luhan. He feels angry at himself, for more reasons than one. Kai doesn't seem to notice his mood until after his touches are spurned, rejected as Joonmyun rolls over onto his side away from his boyfriend.   
  
“Joonmyun? You okay?” he asks in a strained, concerned whisper.   
  
“I'm fine. Just tired, Kai. Goodnight.”   
  
He tries not to feel his heart breaking all on its own when a couple seconds of silence follow his words. Then Kai says even more quietly, “Okay. Goodnight.”   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
The crushing part about fantasy is that it's now the only thing Joonmyun can focus on. All the ways Kai is wonderful, he subverts into faults. Every loving thing Kai says, Joonmyun turns into lies. There comes a day, slowly and surely, where those fatal secrets Kai teased him about must become true. Because Joonmyun wants to make them come true.   
  
He scraps his novel, believing in Luhan's words that the draft is no good. It's not even worth the salvage. He files it in the back of a drawer with a dozen other failed notebooks because it's not even worth the effort it'll take to burn it. He does delete the only working file on his hard drive though, Joonmyun hates it that much. Then he sets about writing the perfect novel, and this time Kai isn't the villain.  _He_ is. It's closer to the truth.   
  
They begin to fight more. It was inevitable. Joonmyun spends more time shut away in his study at night, he responds less to the things Kai says, and ignores half of the questioning pleas, Kai trying desperately to understand what is going on with him.   
  
_I don't know. That's what I'm trying to work out right now,_  Joonmyun thinks as his fingers tingle nervously above the keyboard.   
  
He keeps on waiting for Kai to leave him, as by now he knows the guy surely ought to. Joonmyun is no good like this. He's stuffy, grouchy, closed-off, almost an entirely different person than the man he was on their first date. Back when everything was simple and Joonmyun didn't need to really worry about forever. There'd be an easy way out, just like with all the other people. His heart wouldn't need to bleed as one day it probably would. He just needs to find that reason before it happens, to prepare himself. Open his eyes and look for it, like he has with all his other boyfriends. The fact that Kai doesn't showcase any flaws is just a minor blip in the plan, but Joonmyun knows how to work around that now. Kai will get annoyed with him eventually, and then he can leave and Joonmyun won't feel guilty for wasting Kai's time anymore. It'll be for the best.   
  
And that of course, is Joonmyun's back-up plan. The problem though is that he doesn’t have a back-up plan for the back-up plan. When Kai doesn't leave, Joonmyun starts to get curious, less explosive. Kai quits arguing with him and he bothers him less, but at night he still sneaks into their shared bed whether Joonmyun is respondent or not, and on some of those occasions they still even make love. It's a whole lot easier not thinking about life when he's got Kai shoved into the headboard with his legs around Joonmyun's neck, panting and moaning as he clings onto the sheets as if for dear life. There's no stress, and no novel when Joonmyun is sliding in and out between Kai's thighs, or when Kai opens his mouth in a silent scream, arches his back, and comes between Joonmyun fingers around his cock.   
  
The thoughts creep back in the moments afterwards, but they're less fierce, less volatile in the darkness of their room. Joonmyun wills them away until daylight, anything to get at least one night's peaceful rest.   
  
“When are you going to finish that book?” Kai asks him sleepily about ten minutes after their latest bout. Joonmyun is almost passed out already. They've neither of them bothered to get up and clean themselves off.   
  
“Hmm?” he responds groggily.   
  
“I was just curious... if you were close to finishing?” Kai rolls over and throws a bare leg across Joonmyun's thigh.   
  
“Why do you ask?”   
  
Kai sniffs, readjusting himself and pulling up the blankets to cover them. “Like I said, just curious. And you know, because you're kind of impossible when you're writing.”   
  
“Impossible?” Joonmyun is still fighting the urge to wake up completely, as if his brain knows already that he's not in the temperament to really discuss this.   
  
“Yeah. Grouchy, snippy. Ignoring me. I mean, I've heard the stories about  _artistes_ —“Kai rolls the word across his tongue in a fancy manner — “but I wasn't expecting it to be so true. You're an absolute nightmare when you're creating something.” He laughs jovially, and a sick feeling lodges in the pit of Joonmyun's gut: guilt.   
  
“So... you've been waiting around for me to finish, so I'll be nicer to you?” Joonmyun asks, genuinely curious.   
  
Kai chuckles again, his breath tickling the hairs on nape of Joonmyun's neck. “Something like that.”   
  
“Maybe I'm almost done with it,” Joonmyun whispers, guilt still twisting through his veins when Kai makes a little noise of  _hoorah_ _._ “Or maybe, I don't like it and I want to scrap it. I don't know.”   
  
Kai moans. “Nooo, does that mean it starts all over again?”   
  
“Does what start all over again? My artistic temperament, as you've so labeled it?” It's almost funny how Joonmyun is even talking about this like it's no big deal. The theme and topics of his novel have been stressing him out for too long. It's frightening how lying still, post-coitally with Kai, makes all his worries begin to dissolve.   
  
“Yeah. Or whatever it is you want to call it.”   
  
Joonmyun shuts his eyes, wondering what to do. Should he tell Kai? Does he tell him the kind of novels he writes, or the timelines for when he starts and finishes one? Should he tell him how he only gets inspired by endings, and that he has no idea what to do if that ending refuses to identify itself? That he's been halfway lazily trying to drive Kai to leave?   
  
“Maybe I'm not really cut out to be a writer,” he says instead of all that.   
  
“Really?” asks Kai.   
  
“Yeah, I dunno. Maybe I should just stick to teaching?”   
  
Kai laughs. “I guess I wouldn't really know. I don't even know what you write. How come you never show me? Joonmyun, do you write porn or something?” he suddenly teases.   
  
“What?! No, I don't.”   
  
“Erotic novels then?”   
  
“What? I said, no. How is that not porn?”   
  
“I don't know,” Kai giggles. “I've heard there's more literary value in them, not that I've read any.”   
  
Joonmyun snorts. “Well, it's neither of the above. I'm just... well maybe one day I'll show you...”   
  
“Ohhh,  _one day_ ,” Kai intones haughtily. “I guess I'll just have to wait and find out.”   
  
Joonmyun wonders what Luhan will say, if he calls him and says there's no novel. If he can quit cold turkey like this, or if he even wants to. The very fact he's not fighting the  _one day_ thing is notable, more notable than Kai even knows.   
  
“Perhaps,” he whispers, the only agreement he’ll put a word to.   
  
Kai mumbles and then falls silent. Joonmyun is pretty sure he’s fallen asleep, and that’s unfortunate because Joonmyun is not at all comfortable with how Kai’s draped himself all over his sweaty body. On the other hand, that’s a minor complaint but louder than any of the other thoughts Joonmyun could be having.   
  
Thoughts about writing _ **the end**  _spelled out in big, fat letters.   
  
He can’t figure it out.   
  
Maybe he doesn’t need to. Or, at the very least: not yet. 


End file.
